JLC Report

Massachusetts Stretches for Higher Home-Energy Scores

In July of 2009, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a
complex piece of legislation called the Green Communities Act,
or GCA. Although the act concerns itself largely with public
utility policy, it also contains a number of provisions aimed
specifically at builders. And as a key deadline approaches,
builders in some Massachusetts communities are waiting somewhat
uneasily for those provisions to take effect.

Waiting for the appendix. One element of the GCA is
the Green Communities Program, under which municipalities that
meet five separate criteria can become eligible for
“Green Community” designation by the state.
So far, about two dozen of the 351 municipalities in the
commonwealth have enrolled.

As of July 1, 2010, builders in those Green Communities will
be required to comply with Appendix 120 AA — commonly
known as the “stretch code” — to the
amended 7th edition of the Massachusetts building code, which
is designed to be about 20 percent more energy-efficient than
the base code in effect elsewhere in the state. The July date
will mark the end of a transition period that began in January
2010, during which Bay State builders had the option of
complying with the 7th edition of the code — which
references the 2006 IECC and its 2007 supplement — or
the amended 7th edition, which uses the 2009 IECC and includes
Appendix 120 AA.

Under stretch-code guidelines, new homes larger than 3,000
square feet will have to earn a HERS rating of 65; homes under
3,000 square feet will need a rating of 70. Builders of
additions to existing homes have a choice: They can meet the
same HERS rating as new construction or opt for a somewhat less
stringent prescriptive path.

A lower rating, HERS 80 or 85, applies to renovations over and
under 2,000 square feet, respectively. However, for all but new
construction, prescriptive paths are available. Stretch allows
either a performance path or a prescriptive path —
compliance with Energy Star Homes Builders Option Package (BOP)
— for additions and renovations. Only new-home
construction mandates the involvement (and cost) of a HERS
rater.

Home-builder pushback. Given that rating requirement,
the stretch code has generated stiff opposition from the Home
Builders Association of Massachusetts (HBAM), which contends
that it will increase costs and price some homeowners out of
the market. “For a 2,000-square-foot home,
it’s going to add anywhere from $8,000 to
$10,000,” says Matt Cole, a project supervisor with
builder Cape Associates in North Eastham. “Here on
Cape Cod, our average customer is 70 years old. Are they
interested in a 15- or 20-year payback?”

There’s also concern on the part of some that the
stretch code hasn’t been completely thought out.
“One of the major things not in current code that is
in the stretch,” Brewster building commissioner Victor
Staley says, “is specific testing. When you have
blower-door testing farmed out to a third-party HERS rater, how
does that relate to the building code? If someone disagrees
with the results of a blower-door test, where do they go to
appeal it? If I make a decision as a building official,
there’s an appellate process in place, outlined in the
state building code. But in the stretch code, if a homeowner
disagrees with the result and wants to appeal, there is no
process of appeals. It leaves a lot to be
desired.”

What’s the difference? But for contractors
already practicing energy-efficient construction —
especially those who focus on remodeling — the stretch
code may not seem much of a stretch. Paul Eldrenkamp is a
remodeler in the Boston suburb of Newton, which is among the
relatively few Massachusetts towns that have so far adopted
Appendix 120 AA. Eldrenkamp predicts that building officials,
not builders themselves, will have the most trouble adapting to
the change. “We’ve been beating the
stretch-code requirements on our projects for several years
now, for the most part,” he says. “But
there’s going to be a huge learning curve for the
industry. I’ve been in stretch code sessions attended
by building inspectors, and they’re all over the place
as far as their technical knowledge goes. Some are incredibly
on top of things, but others aren’t.”

Jonathan Kantor, another Newton-based remodeler, agrees that
the appendix is not well-understood. “The people most
strongly opposed to stretch don’t always know what
they’re talking about,” he says.
“You hear lot of people say that performance testing
is going to make renovations and additions much more expensive
and difficult, but that’s just not so. The base code
doesn’t require performance testing, and stretch
doesn’t require them either, for renovations and
additions. It’s an option, not a requirement. But I
would say that this is a precursor of what the national codes
will require — if not the next round, then in the one
that follows.” — Dave Holbrook

Offcuts

Despite strong demand for energy-efficiency workers, a
shortage of education and training programs is limiting job
growth in the field, according to a recent study from the
DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. While the
equivalent of about 120,000 full-time workers is now employed
in providing energy-efficiency services — with 65
percent to 70 percent of them in the building and construction
trades — as many as 380,000 jobs may need to be filled
by the year 2020. The full report, “Energy Efficiency
Services Sector: Workforce Education and Training
Needs,” can be downloaded at
eetd.lbl.gov/
EA/EMP/ee-pubs.html.

The federal government has stiffened requirements for Energy
Star product certification. Under the new rules —
effective since mid-April — manufacturers will no
longer be able to apply for certification before submitting
complete lab-test results. The automated approval process has
also been replaced; now all applications are reviewed by a
program staff member. The change comes in the wake of an
embarrassing investigation by the Government Accountability
Office, during which auditors posing as manufacturers were
awarded the label for such nonexistent products as a
“gasoline- powered alarm clock.”

A North Carolina inventor has won a $15 million judgment
against Home Depot for stealing his design for a radial-arm saw
guard. According to the Miami Daily Business Review,
independent contractor Michael Powell had supplied the chain
with several prototypes of his “Safe Hands”
devices in response to incidents in which store employees
injured themselves while cutting sheet goods. The company made
plans to install the guards in about 2,000 stores nationwide
and hired a third party to manufacture them without
Powell’s consent. At the trial, a Home Depot
purchasing agent quoted company president Tom Single as saying,
“Let Mike Powell and them sue us.”

Traditional
“greenfield” suburban development may not be
going away soon, but a recent EPA survey of residential
building permit data from 1990 to 2008 concludes that
“there has been a dramatic increase in the share of
new construction built in central cities and older
suburbs.” Over the past six years, for example, New
York City has accounted for 48 percent of all regional building
permits, compared with 15 percent in the early 1990s. The
corresponding figures for Chicago were 27 and 7 percent; for
Portland, Ore., 26 and 9 percent; and for Atlanta, 14 and 4
percent. The full study report, “Residential
Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan
Regions,” is available at
epa.gov/smartgrowth.

New York has become the latest state to comply with a
provision in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
(ARRA) by adopting the 2009 International Energy Conservation
Code (IECC). The change, expected to take effect by the end of
2010, helps make the state eligible for energy-related stimulus
funds. Although all 50 states accepted a share of the $3.1
billion federal funding package — which is meant to
cover costs incurred in adopting codes equal to or more
stringent than the 2009 IECC — only nine have followed
through: California, Montana, Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, the District of
Columbia, and, now, New York.